England vs Germany: Declan Rice ready to take Euro 2020 penalty despite dreadful youth spot-kick record
Rice missed several decisive spot-kicks for Chelsea as a youngster
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Your support makes all the difference.Declan Rice is ready to take a penalty for England at Euro 2020 having learned his lessons from a dreadful spot-kick record as a youngster in Chelsea’s academy.
The West Ham midfielder admitted on Friday that he stepped up for three penalties to win tournaments as a youngster and missed them all, which may concern Gareth Southgate ahead of Tuesday’s last-16 tie with Germany.
Rice insisted however that he will put his hand up to take another if needed as he has learned from those experiences. The 22-year-old took two penalties for West Ham this season, scoring one and missing another.
“Three different tournaments at Chelsea as a kid, three chances to win it for our team and I missed all three. That doesn't sound very good,” Rice conceded.
“I feel back then as a kid the pressure of being away, the excitement, going up the ball we were nervous. It's funny now with fans watching and I've been practising them at West Ham all season, to come here is just about the process in my head.
“When the ref blows the whistle, you don't have to go. You can give yourself an extra couple of seconds, breathing techniques just to relax yourself and then it's all about visualisation - how you want to put the ball in the back of the net - and they are things that I started to develop as I got older.
“I'm just trying to practise and if my name is called upon to go and do it I'm positive I can put the ball away.”
England have practised penalties throughout this tournament camp and have a 100% record in shoot-outs under Southgate, having beaten Colombia and Switzerland on spot-kicks at the World Cup and Nations League finals respectively.
Rice was not part of the squad in Russia three years ago and was an unused substitute for the Switzerland game, but said he may not have offered to take one anyway. That stance has now changed, due to him becoming a senior figure at his club.
“If you'd asked me a couple of years ago, I probably would have said no. But where I've started to take responsibility at club level now, it's about process,” he added. “In your mind you can go out there, and you can put the ball in the back of the net.
“As a group, we know the process of what we've got to go through. But it's about mentally picking a spot, and just wanting to put the ball in the back of the net.”
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